The Verizon Stratosphere II is one of those phones. You know, the quirky - I mean, qwerty - kind that packs just enough punch to be functional but not enough to wow the bulk of us. Today Verizon has announced the latest firmware update, version I415VRBMF1, that gives the little handset a little tune-up. The device should now give a more accurate read of data usage and leave behind a few jarring bugs, such as issues where auto-correct inadvertently replaces an entire text message and the SIM pin entry screen displays the incorrect number of remaining attempts.

It's time for Verizon to roll out its next wave of exclusive devices, as the company has just sent out invitations to its upcoming press event. Verizon will hold the shindig in New York City on July 23rd, where we expect the carrier to announce the latest generation of its DROID handsets. Likely candidates include the DROID Ultra, the DROID MAXX (an Ultra with a bigger battery), and the DROID Mini (convenient travel sized).

If you're having reception issues or dropped calls at your home or office, Verizon Wireless (and other carriers) might recommend you pick up a femtocell. This is a small device that plugs into your router and acts like a miniature cell tower. However, a pair of security researchers have revealed how they managed to use that same device to snoop on phone calls and other communications.

Late last night, AT&T began promoting its new "Next" smartphone upgrade plan in earnest. And earlier yesterday, a leaked training document revealed Verizon's "Edge" upgrade plan. Both are very obvious four-letter copies of T-Mobile's new Jump plan. Let me give you the breakdown on these Jump competitors as quickly as I can.

AT&T will allow you to finance (0% interest, no down payment, no finance charges) a phone for 20 months, pay it off monthly, and after 12 months of payments, will let you trade it in and start financing a new phone, and remaining payments on the old phone will be forgiven.

Droid-life has gotten its hands on some leaked Verizon employee training materials, and they reveal the existence of something called "VZ Edge" - what can only be described as Verizon's four-letter answer to T-Mobile's new Jump upgrade plan. The gist is this: Verizon will allow you to upgrade your phone every 6 months, with strings attached. Here's what we know so far.

Just yesterday Verizon dropped the price of its Galaxy S 4 by $50, which in itself was a noteworthy deal since directly from Big Red was the only place you could find the 32 gigger. Until today, that is. Wirefly has now made itself the only other retailer to offer the 32GB S 4 running on Verizon, and of course, it's also more affordable at only $220 for both upgrades and new customers.

In what PhoneArena calls a "leaked internal memo," launch dates for the Verizon versions of the HTC One and the upcoming Moto X are allegedly revealed - August 1st and August 23rd, respectively. It also adds to the growing pile of evidence that the Moto X will be coming to Verizon sans-DROID branding. Is there any reason to take stock in this rather generic looking document, though?

My gut leaning is "yes," but there are caveats to leaked internal communications like these.

Looking for a great deal on the 32GB version of Verizon's Galaxy S4? Well, too bad - you aren't going to find one. Big Red is hoarding the supply of handsets like they're the only bar in a dry county, and it's their way or the highway. Verizon originally announced the 32GB S4 would be available for a staggering (but utterly believable) $299 on contract, $100 more than the 16GB edition, despite the fact that it was actually only $50 more off contract.

Motorola has new phones for Verizon coming very soon, in case you hadn't heard. We've already seen a pretty convincing leak of the DROID MAXX, a Kevlar-cloaked updated version of Moto's DROID RAZR MAXX HD. Leakster extraordinaire Evleaks just posted another press shot, this time showing off the DROID Mini (or possibly MINI) next to the DROID Ultra and the nearly identical DROID MAXX with a bigger battery. The Mini and Ultra are assumed to be updated versions of the DROID RAZR M and DROID RAZR HD, respectively.

Samsung Galaxy S4 owners on Verizon, there's a new update available for your phones. But don't bother checking your Settings menu for an over-the-air prompt: it's only available via the Verizon Software Upgrade Assistant after connecting the device to a PC. Standard users should be fine, but rooted users (or those who intend to root or flash a new ROM sometime in the future) should avoid this one. According to several posters on XDA, the VRUAME7 patches existing root methods, and flashes a new version of the locked bootloader that prevents users from flashing a pre-release kernel, effectively blocking another path to root.